The present invention relates to communications and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for charging a fee to a calling party initiating a telephone call to a called party when the calling party is not on an authorization list associated with the called party.
Many businesses utilize telemarketing as a means of soliciting customers in order to promote or sell the company""s products and/or services. Telephone companies have not yet successfully employed a mechanism which either allows the targeted party to avoid the telephone solicitation or to receive some type of pecuniary benefit for receiving the solicitation.
A service known as Caller-ID is now available which allows a party receiving a telephone call to visually review the telephone number and/or the identity of the calling party before deciding whether to accept the telephone call. However, Caller-ID has several disadvantages. First of all, when the called party receives a telephone call, the called party must visually review the caller""s identity and/or the telephone number on the display of the Caller-ID device to determine whether he or she wishes to accept the telephone call. Therefore, the telephone rings regardless of whether or not the called party is interested in accepting the call, which interrupts the called party. Although the Caller-ID service does provide the subscriber with the option of blocking telephone calls, it does not provide for billing the calling party a fee in order to connect the calling part with the called party.
Secondly, many telephone calls show up on the Caller-ID display as xe2x80x9cunknownxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cprivatexe2x80x9d numbers, thereby preventing the called party from ascertaining the telephone number and/or identity of the calling party. Therefore, the called party often feels compelled to accept the call when this message is displayed even though the called party does not know the telephone number and/or the identity of the calling party.
Accordingly, a need exists for a method and apparatus that allows a receiving party of a telephone call to effectively block the call and/or accept the in exchange for some pecuniary benefit charged to the party initiating the call.
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for determining whether a party initiating a telephone call is on a list of parties authorized by the called party. If the calling party is not on the list of authorized parties, a fee is charged to the calling party. All or a portion of this fee may be paid to the called party or may be applied to the called party""s telephone service billing account to reduce the called party""s telephone bill. The present invention is not limited with respect to the manner in which the fee is collected and/or used after the calling party has been charged.
The present invention is also not limited with respect to the location at which the method and/or apparatus are located in the telephone network. Preferably, the present invention is implemented at the called party""s central office, i.e., at the central office which services the called party. In accordance with common-channel signaling, commonly referred to as signaling system 7 (SS7), the calling party""s telephone number and identity are received in the call signaling data transmitted to the central office which services the called party. Many services, such as, for example, caller-ID, are implemented at the called party""s central office. Therefore, processing equipment is already available at central offices for detecting the calling party""s identity and telephone number and for processing this information. Preferably, this processing equipment at the called party""s central office is programmed in accordance with the present invention to compare the calling party""s identity and/or telephone number with a list of authorized identities and/or telephone numbers associated with the called party to determine whether the calling party is an authorized party.
Preferably, the service provided by the present invention is optional and can be enabled or disabled at the called party""s central office depending on whether the called party has subscribed to the service. Assuming the called party has subscribed to the service, if the calling party is not an authorized party, the processing equipment either automatically charges the calling party a connection fee and connects the calling party with the called party, or informs the calling party that it is not an authorized party and gives the calling party the option of being disconnected or being billed the connection fee and connected to the called party. In the later case, if the calling party authorizes the connection fee to be billed, the calling party is then connected to the called party. Otherwise, the calling party is disconnected.
These and other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description, drawings and claims.